


Rough Trade

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Choking, F/M, Light BDSM, Lydia is thirsty, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:59:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9574892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: He looked grungy really, sloppy, unpressed; like he’d never stepped foot in a dry cleaner; like if his shadow had been a tangible object, it would have been wrinkled and creased; like if he were ever at a farmer’s market, forced at gunpoint to differentiate between a rutabaga and a radish, he’d be clueless. He wasn't at all like the Ralph-Lauren, two-cappuccino, metrosexual, BMW, stewardess-screwing carbon-copies she'd been forced to cohabit with at countless luncheons and out-of-town corporate soirees and the occasional, desperate speed-dating function. No, Mike’s guy looked more like the type who’d bend her over this forklift, and fuck her right here and now.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Salon_Kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salon_Kitty/gifts).



“Wait. _Wait._ Wait. _Stop_!”

Lydia tried telling herself it wasn’t there as it stared her right in the face. She raised her flashlight, and horrified, inspected the suspended tank of methylamine, feeling entirely out of her element. That queasy, ominous, titillating sensation in her gut had doubled.

She advanced with caution, mumbling, “ _Oh my god, oh my god_.”

He snapped down from the forklift in a confident, surefooted manner like someone with experience on a skateboard or scaling chain link fences. “ _What_?”

It sounded peevish and gruff, felt warm and smelled like cigarettes. He was practically breathing on the side of her neck.

“Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

Tonight wasn’t going as she’d planned in the slightest, and she was somewhat irrationally irritated by how readily Mike’s guy had stopped despite her telling him to do so.

The way he’d barged inside the warehouse the instant she raised the left-side dock doors without _any_ form of identification was upsetting enough. She was there alone well past business hours for god's sake, and despite however young he appeared at first glance, he was still a stranger, and a man. They were in an empty building, alone, at night. Against all her logic and reasoning and self-perseverance, there was something exciting and chillingly familiar about the scenario.

“ _Wait_ ,” she had said just ten minutes earlier, taking a step back.

Then she got a good look at him.

And it was as if he were an exact materialization of a figure from a dream she'd been having much too frequently. It wasn't a nightmare by any means, though it was still highly unsettling. While the dream had a multitude of different turns and trajectories, the bottom-line common-denominator was the inclusion of a man quite aggressively and forcibly having his way with her. And while she believed that something of those lines should have been repulsive, she was waking up even more restless and weary than she’d been when applying her night cream not six hours prior. 

“The sooner we do this, this sooner it’s done,” he’d said.

There was a throaty, husky quality to his voice that reminded her of fantasies of cigarette burns on her thighs, singed into her skin strategically above her hemline, and daydreams of expletive-laden bouts of phone sex she was pressured into while she was at work, getting her more and more aroused behind her desk in clear view of everyone in the office. Sometimes, in these fictitious setups, she’d touch herself anyway, all the while being goaded into an orgasm that never peaked.

Mike’s guy had the kind of scruffy, vaguely-threatening, boyish face she could see herself picturing on mornings she slipped a hand inside her panties before she’d even removed her eye mask. _His_ eyes were a chilling kind of cobalt and they were coming closer. He was still approaching her and staring, and she could feel her pulse at the back of her mouth and between her legs. He looked grungy really, sloppy, unpressed; like he’d never stepped foot in a dry cleaner; like if his shadow had been a tangible object, it would have been wrinkled and creased; like if he were ever at a farmer’s market, forced at gunpoint to differentiate between a rutabaga and a radish, he’d be clueless. He wasn't at all like the Ralph-Lauren, two-cappuccino, metrosexual, BMW, stewardess-screwing carbon-copies she'd been forced to cohabit with at countless luncheons and out-of-town corporate soirees and the occasional, desperate speed-dating function. No, Mike’s guy looked more like the type who’d bend her over this forklift, and fuck her right here and now.

She questioned if he was even interested. He’d eyed her legs earlier, she was pretty sure, before this little shit-storm of a discovery. She triple-checked the underside of the barrel as if anything were going to change.   

“Prison guards,” she said. “They really do rape you: men and women. I watched an expose on it just last week. Have you ever _been_ to prison?”

He rubbed a hand down the side of his face where it looked like he hadn’t shaved this morning or several for that matter. “Nah.”

Was she disappointed? Did he _know_ how to use a razor? Would he press one against the base of her throat, his erection digging into her lower-back, if she asked? He must have owned some sort of shearing mechanism to achieve that kind of haircut. It made him look like he had stubble all over. She wondered what his scalp would feel like against her inner thighs.

“Good,” she said, not sure if she were responding to his lack of a record or answering her own theoretical question.

“Was in a drunk tank…twice, though. Been brought down for like questioning a couple times too.”

His gaze traveled up and down her body, quick but heavy, like the leather end of a whip.

Had she actually visibly emoted disappointment? Was he trying to impress her? Did she look like the kind of woman who’d be impressed by that?

She pinched the back of her neck and swore to herself if she showed up to work _one_ more time in mismatched pumps, she wasn’t allowing herself that extra packet of Stevia in her midmorning peppermint-ginseng blend. She wondered if she was coming across as paranoid, anxious; “wound tight” was a phrase she’d heard whispered in the office. Maybe he’d say something like, “I bet your fucking tight everywhere,” as he entered her from behind with a hand down her blouse.

“I really… _really_ don’t need this today,” she said. “I swear to god, nothing, absolutely _nothing_ has gone right in the past twenty-four hours. I mean, the DEA shows up at my office, I’m entirely unprepared, Darcy has yet to replace my soy milk after I asked her _three_ times, my car’s engine light turned on this morning, the batteries in my vibrator gave out last night, _seconds_ before I”—

She stopped about as abruptly as his sympathetic nodding, and then he was just kind of gawking at her with a thumbnail between his teeth.

“I’m sorry, that was inappropriate and”—she straightened her blazer. “You know what? I’m not sorry. I’m a single woman under a tremendous amount of stress with a more than healthy libido. And there’s nothing shameful about masturbation or using a rabbit to do so. A rabbit _vibrator_ that is, of course. It’s a model designed to provide penetration while also stimulating the clitoris. And really it astounds me that so many men can’t even locate that place on a woman’s body; present company excluded, I’m sure.”

His eyes got a little larger, mouth twisting as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. “Uh… _yeah_.”

Despite his discomfort, there was something in his inflection that seemed to simmer.   

“Well, my schedule is obscenely overbooked, I have _no_ time for a romantic partner, _and_ I’m a single mother on top of”—

“You uh…got a kid,” he said. He rested some of his weight on the forklift, fidgeting, latching onto that one detail like the tacky substance surrounding the tracking device. “How old is…it?”

Lydia had heard of men luring in women with the whole single-dad, good-father act. She never considered the ploy to be gender-neutral.

“ _She_ will be six in April.”

Something in his features softened.

“Cool. Six is like…a fun age or whatever. I think that was the last time my little brother and me still like really talked and hung out and shit. I used to let him ride on the handlebars on my dirt bike and we’d have like drawing contests and I kind of accidentally taught him how to say ‘fuck.’” He chuckled before seeming to remember where he was. She swore he glanced at her breasts again. He gestured to the barrel. “You want me to like…put this back?”

She absently fingered her collar. “Yes, that would be preferable.”

He nodded and hoped back up, and when he extended his arm this time, she saw dark ink beneath the right sleeve of his hooded jacket: a tattoo. She had to hold her own wrist to stop from reaching out to pull back the material in the same way she’d been picturing him pulling down the cups of her bra and grabbing her.

It didn’t take long for him to finish up, and she walked him back to the door where his car was waiting.

“So uh…I guess Mike will let you know,” he said, taking a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He dropped down onto the pavement.

“Actually,” she said. She followed him to the very ledge of the dock. “I think it might be wise if I have your number as well.”

He already had his lighter poised, sucking back with his lips pursed, squinting. “Why?”

She feigned agitation. “You're one of Mike’s guys, right? And I work with Mike. Wouldn’t it make sense for me to have a way to get in contact with you if Mike wasn’t available? I mean, it’s not as if I’m asking for your _personal_ number. You do have a separate phone for things like this, do you not?”

“Yeah, shit, alright,” he said.

He whipped out a cheap-looking, flip-phone and they exchanged information.

She had her thumb hovering above her second Blackberry she had for all Pollos-related business. “What’s your name?”

“Jesse,” he said, giving her a tight sort of smile as he opened the driver’s side door.

“Lydia,” she said. “I’m expecting to hear from you. Have a safe drive.”

He nodded, and she nodded, and she locked onto the contrasting blue of his eyes in the dark of the parking lot. She had previously entertained the idea of pursuing a sexual arrangement like the one she’d been involuntarily envisioning. But things of that nature when gone about in the wrong way had exploitation and theft and venereal disease written all over it. And sure, he was a little less hulking and brutish than the individual in her dream, smaller and slimmer. But that only lessened her risk of actually getting hurt, of completely losing control over the situation. It provided Lydia with a little leverage. And Mike’s guy had someone vouching for his character.  Plus, her entry way was already there. She had a connection; networking at its finest.   

\---

Lydia wasn’t sure how much stock she should put in it, but Jesse was the only one out of the three of them who’d defended her at all. Maybe he didn’t understand how planting a tracking device on the _outside_ of barrel and then orchestrating its reveal like some sort of cheap, lowbrow con-artist was a tactic well below her intelligence level. But, for whatever reason he seemed compelled to back her, and for a moment or two he’d been the only thing standing between her and Mike’s gun. Not literally of course. She understood where loyalties would have fallen if push had come to shove; thank god it hadn’t.

And given her surroundings--some dank, abandoned, vaguely industrial, _filthy_ , armpit of Albuquerque--having anyone plead her case was more than a little comforting. Flattering too, no matter how ludicrous. For god’s sake, she honestly thought she was going to wet herself listening to the DEA agent telling his partner they’d had no part in handling the tracking device. It had been maybe ten or fifteen minutes since then, but things still felt confused down there. She had these sort of anxious chills and a low-hanging weight in her abdomen, a spastic, palpitating pressure at her groin that she associated both with desperately needing to use the facilities as well as feeling aroused.  Jesse glancing at her over his laptop and then from a distance while talking with Mike and the cook hadn’t exactly helped either.

He had been glancing at everyone really. What was it that he’d said? Something like, “I hate to say it, Mike. But she _saved_ our asses by finding that thing?” Keeping his arms close to his chest, he’d been vocal about his misgivings over having her killed though he had never raised his voice or interrupted, eyes drifting to the other two men in the room as if seeking validation. As far as thugs went, he didn’t strike her as one who was all that violent or cocksure. Trusting to a fault and young, for sure, but not senselessly ruthless. He was still one of Mike’s guys though. He clearly looked up to the man, and there was always an underlying threat simply from that alone.

“Walter,” Mike said, nodding to the exit. “A word?”

Lydia didn’t think she’d ever heard Mike speak so irritably, even taking their semi-regular meetings into account. It was as if he hardly had any respect for the other cook at all. But he didn’t talk like that with Jesse. He saw something there too.

They started to leave, to leave her with one of her hands still so-to-speak bolted to the table.

She opened her mouth in alarm. “ _Hey_.”

Mike and the cook were already out of the room, but Jesse jerked his head towards her and walked forward. She had no way of knowing what someone like him would do with her in her condition. Even if she did have one hand free, there was still a lot he could do to get her to stay down and quiet.

“Sorry,” he said, even smiling.

He unlocked her handcuff quite gently. And if he was going for more of the whole knight-in-shining-armor scenario, then she was grossly unprepared with her choice of undergarments: black, practical bra and matching, seamless bikini-style panties.

She nervously rubbed at her unshackled wrist. “Thank you.”

“Yo, you okay? You got like low blood sugar or something?” He pointed at her hands. “You’re shaking real bad. I might have like chips in my car if you’re hungry.”

“Oh, no. I’m not…not hungry,” she said. She discretely angled her forearm against the table, pressing into a nerve in a way that only exaggerated her tremor. Her tear ducts were cooperating, eyes just barely welling up. She shot her hands to her lap as if embarrassed. “I’m…I’m fine, thank you.” 

“Hey.” _Oh god, he was touching her._ His hand was on her arm. He leaned in as to confide in her. “Yo, I think everything’s good now.”

How hard would it be for him to move his hand to the buttons on her blouse? He’d have plenty of time to fuck her before they came back if he was fast enough. She pondered what color of lingerie he’d prefer. Black was too blasé, as was red, and white was much too bridal and didn’t do much for her skin tone. If she guided his hand down the front of her panties, would he comply? Was that all he needed: a little guidance?

“Red is a nice color on you,” she said. “It suits you. Your shirt; I like it.”

Lydia was still playing the stuttering, air-headed damsel in distress, and he smiled with a manner that was disarmingly endearing albeit a little puzzled. And in his eyes--darkening a bit, lingering on her breasts again--was something…lustful.

“Thanks. You….” He had one hand cupping the back of his neck as he vaguely gestured towards her ensemble with the other.

“Kiira,” she said. He shut his mouth as his eyes narrowed. “My daughter. I think I mentioned her before. Her name is Kiira. She can say ever color in the color wheel in Spanish now. The nanny has been teaching her. I’m supposed to check up on her in about half an hour. I’m very grateful I can still make that phone call.”

His hand traveled to her wrist, his own slightly exposed where his tattoo ink seemed to slither along his skin despite being stationary. It looked like some kind of venomous insect: small, unassuming but lethal. She started to ever so slightly twist her arm as if to reciprocate, reaching her thumb out to stroke down the design. 

Footsteps and voices echoed down the corridor. He straightened up and stepped away, discarding the evidence of what he’d done in the chair next to her. He’d gotten those things off pretty easily. She wondered what his experience level was like with handcuffs.

\---

Lydia shut her eyes tighter and tried to ignore the dull roar of a vacuum cleaner down the hall. Even with her yoga mat, she could feel a difference in the way the hotel’s hardwoods felt against her back. She had the blinds of the floor-to-ceiling windows drawn of her suite’s living area. The instructor on her fitness DVD was still droning on about weightlessness and serenity, and Lydia’s head was so stuffed with Jesse she couldn’t accomplish proper shavasana; not that she ever really did. Who _actually_ enjoyed marinating in their own sweat?

She sat up fast enough to become lightheaded, switching off the television, and grabbing her second Blackberry. Her day was packed, but she’d purposefully left tonight open. And it _had_ to be tonight. She couldn’t be in Albuquerque too long. Delores couldn’t watch Kiira for another night for whatever reason. She needed to do this now. 

Saturday 7:00 AM

_Jesse, our current yields are well below our standard of purity. I believe in light of our circumstances, it would be best if we discuss strategy._

After a shower and a quick steam courtesy of booking one of the few penthouse suites, Lydia had a less than successful conversation with Walter at the car wash. His wife was incredibly rude. Speaking with Todd was as grating as ever though she was able to arrange a meeting with Declan set for hours before her flight the next day. Her afternoon was suddenly open, and she had no intention of going back to her room. Instead, she joined a cycling class at a nearby gym, wearing spandex she purchased in the gift shop: two impulsive actions entirely unlike her. She did some light though precise shopping before having an even lighter lunch--too anxious for anything heavier than an appetizer of thyme-braised Brussels sprouts--and finally conceding to return the hotel. In the middle of scanning through work emails, she heard her phone buzz.     

Saturday 5:52 PM

_I sold my shares. I’m out. Sorry. You should talk to the other cook._

She wasn’t sure if he was playing dumb. He must have known she was aware he’d been out for nearly a month now. Did he not read her proposition for what it was? Maybe she was being too nuanced. Of course, she didn’t actually need him as a cook. Her meeting with Declan would ensure Todd would begin cooking regardless of how negotiations landed. She considered going for direct, but thought better of it.

Saturday 6:00 PM

_Mike didn’t say anything about this._

Saturday 6:02 PM

_You heard from Mike? When?_

Lydia smiled, fanning her legs out across the bed and idly glancing through the room service menu on the nightstand. They had a lamb dish that sounded appetizing if she’d had an appetite. She muted the news program she’d been partly listing to and practically counted down the minutes until she believed it wisest to respond. The white canopy above her bed looked clean, and it was rare really to find a hotel that used mahogany for their headboards and bedposts, or even _had_ bedposts for that matter. This one did in their suites at least. Walking to the dresser, she trailed her hand across the decorative tissue paper brimming from her shopping bag: sleek and black with the boutiques’ name in cursive.

Saturday 6:15 PM

_I really think we should handle this face to face. I’m in town. Can you meet tonight?_

Her fingertips barely grazed the first layer of silk inside.

Saturday 6:15 PM

_Where?_

\---

Jesse was turned with his back to her by the time she answered the door, staring at a tourist-friendly painting of some nondescript desert landscape. When he did face her, she noted his stubble had thickened. It by no means amounted to much of a beard, but it conveyed a sort of frayed, bleak desperation that she could read in his eyes. He was wearing a jacket similar to the ones she’d seen him in before. His shirt had a kind of science-fiction-related graphic though she couldn’t identify its specific source material. He reeked of cannabis. And the second he saw her, he ran the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip.

She opened the door wider for him and he stepped inside. He was surveying the foyer and lounge-area, blinking up at the chandelier over the sofa. But she hadn’t stopped walking, and he followed her into the bedroom reluctantly though only a few short paces behind.

“Mike ain’t here?”

So perhaps the silk robe she’d chosen from the local boutique that the concierge had recommended was more stately, demure than she’d intended.       

Lydia absently lifted a section of hair from her shoulders. She wondered if he noticed she was wearing it down for the first time in front of him. For god’s sake, they were standing with at least five feet between them like a couple of eighth graders at a school dance.

“No. Mike is certainly not here.”

“Have you…you even heard from him?” Jesse said. Maybe the smile on her face was a touch too condescending because it seemed to set him off. He shot a hand out dejectedly. “Yo, what the hell is this? Thought I was here to talk strategy.”

She needed a drink.

Thankfully, she had a tumbler of gin on the rocks prepared to ease any unforeseen jitters. Sipping it, she glanced at Jesse’s reflection in the oval mirror of the vanity and turned to lean against the table. She unfastened her robe and simply soaked in the way his pupils dilated.

After nearly half an hour of browsing, she’d purchased a satin chemise: dark burgundy--entirely different than that awful, _tacky_ , Valentine’s Day red--with lace detailing along the straps and a slit cut high enough up her outer left thigh to reveal the sheer waistband of the matching thong underneath.  

“I arranged for you to meet me in my hotel room at nine in the evening and you _really_ expected us to discuss _strategy_?”

She omitted the part where he’d also arrived to what he believed to be a professional engagement most likely inebriated. His eyes were bloodshot.

He drifted closer and she offered him her drink, and he knocked back three fingers worth of top-shelf gin as if it were some house-pour tequila. Setting the glass down, he braced a hand on either side of her, effectively preventing her from moving in a way that made her legs involuntarily squeeze together in pleasure. He seemed to notice.

“Guess not,” he said.

And directing her solely with his eyes, she picked up on is cue to lean her head back in the same instant he kissed her. He was disappointingly gentle, coaxing her lips open with a languid roll of his tongue, hands exploring though mostly outside her robe as if he were waiting for some kind of permission; all things pleasant though not quite on tonight’s agenda. She pushed him back by his chest. And, _god_ , she felt hardly a third of the muscle mass she’d been anticipating, almost like lifting a heavy-looking, leather-bound volume of text to then find its pages hollowed out.

“Some ground rules for tonight. Rule number one,” she said, thumbing his lower lip, “Take what you want, Jesse.”

He eyed her uncertainly before diving back in for another kiss, this time palming her breast through the chemise, and she gasped as she nudged him back again. She felt like she was doing a little _too_ much nudging and prodding, but she didn’t want any miscommunication, so she might as well lay it out for him now if she was going to get what she wanted.

“My left ankle is weak from a ballet accident when I was six. I don’t like my hair pulled. I refuse to refer to you as any sort of paternal moniker. I don’t intend to sustain anything requiring medical attention. However, striking with an _open_ hand, choking, and biting are all welcomed. And of course, if you wish to hit me, anywhere is fine but my face.”

“ _What_?” he said.

“Which part exactly did you not understand?”

“All of it?” He shook his head as if baffled, a lost kind of gaze in his eyes before he shut them and looked at her again. “Mike ever…fuck you like that?”

She could almost feel her whole face pucker in disgust. “Mike? Absolutely not. He was old enough to be my grandfather. And I doubt that sad, geriatric, dead-eyed trained-gun would have ever been able to get his limp”—

Jesse slammed her against the vanity’s mirror with a hand at her throat, and it was like every neuron in her brain was simultaneously firing and shutting down. Goading him had been fairly simple, and when his grip tightened she felt more than vindicated as she registered the onset of endorphins. His whole body was shaking. When the burn in his eyes began to dull and she could just barely take in a breath, she clamped her hands over his.

“Leave…it.”

She’d done extensive research on hypoxic euphoria, how a lack of oxygen to the brain created this dreamy, lucid state. And she could feel it in every chilled limb of her body, didn’t want it to stop even when he no longer looked like he wanted to throttle her. He tried pulling away and in desperation, she sunk her nails in deep enough to puncture skin. This tactic backfired.

Jesse jerked himself free with a raspy sort of hiss.

“ _Crazy fucking bitch_ ,” he said. He pressed his measly, little cuts to his mouth.

“Why did you stop?”

“What the fuck?” It was as if he were speaking to himself.

“ _Why_ did you _stop_?”

She needed to lean only so far to slap him across the face. And he did nothing but blink before she did it again. Rearing her arm back for a third, he pushed hard at her shoulder.

“ _Shit._ Just…give me a minute, alright?” He clawed something out his pocket. It wasn’t until he was arranging some sort of powdered substance in lines on the back of the hotel’s laminated list of pay-per-view channels that she realized it was probably cocaine. “What the _fuck_?”

She’d never watched anyone snort cocaine before; Adderall a few times in boarding school, but nothing this intense. Jesse rolled up a bill from his wallet and inhaled two lines, rapid-fire. Grunting, he slammed his fists against the vanity, did another line, and walked in a tight circle before fussing with his baggy again. She felt as if she were witnessing some sort of barbaric locker-room ritual.

“You know,” Lydia said. She skimmed her fingertips along the ring of warmth on her neck where his hand had been.  “When you deprive someone of oxygen, brain cells start to die at an alarmingly fast rate. This sets off a series of biochemical reactions in aerobic and brain tissues. Then your body works overtime to prevent something called glutamate overload. Whatever it is, I can’t recall the exact name now, creates this semi-hallucinogenic sensation that scientists have found comparable to taking heroin. I’m not _actually_ crazy, you know? I mean, there’s really a lot of pure biology involved. It’s science really. And”—

He locked his hand over her mouth and pressed down hard enough for nearly every muscle in his arm to quiver.

“ _Shut…the fuck…up_.”

Releasing his hold, he hooked his arms under her thighs and dropped her onto the bed. He yanked at the deep V-neckline of her chemise, left strap snapping clear off. And he bit her right above her breast.

Moaning, she held onto the comforter and bucked up against his groin. His teeth were deep and unapologetic, and the pain rippled in waves down her spine, felt so good in a way she couldn’t reason with or rationalize. But it was present and palpable none the less.

It originated from the same place that compelled her to gasp, “ _No, stop. Oh stop_.”

And the force at which he continued was intoxicating, as was her own voice. It was completely ludicrous, but telling him no was spiking her arousal with an intensity that should have startled her.

“ _Oh god, no. No_. _Stop_.”

He lifted his face, breathing heavily, hovering above her still fully dressed.

She raised herself up on her elbows. “What are you doing?”

“Stopping.” He narrowed his eyes. “Yo, you _told_ me to stop.”

“ _Look_ ,” she said. Regardless of whether she was at fault or not, she was still irritated. “In situations like these, words like ‘stop’ and ‘no’ typically are not taken at face value. I can see that you’re confused so let’s say from here on out, you’ll know I _actually_ want you to stop when I say ‘rutabaga.’”

Yes, she had picked out a safe-word beforehand. She never went to the market without a grocery list or on a long flight without two flavors of sugar-free gum and her neck pillow. So why would she ever venture into something like this without a pre-decided safe-word?

Scoffing, Jesse looked deliciously infuriated. “Yo, I can’t even _pronounce_ that.”

“It’s _my_ safe-word. Why on earth would _you_ need to use it?”

Before he could react, she slapped him so hard her palm smarted. That stimuli had proved effective, and in the same vein as the classical conditioning used with Pavlov’s dogs, Jesse reacted exactly as she’d predicted.  

He bit her, harder this time but at the same spot. And he only stopped to struggle with her robe before discarding his own clothing.

It didn’t take long before there was nothing in her sight but tattoos, blue eyes, and his erection.

Lifting the skirt of her chemise, he rubbed two fingers teasingly against the crotch of her panties, undoubtedly feeling how wet she was. He tugged the garment far enough to gather at her ankles before he was roughly pressing his thumb directly against her clitoris. Trailing his fingers lower, he slid two between her inner lips, and the combination of where he was touching her reminded of her of vibrator. And he wasn’t aimlessly fishing around like she’d experienced so many times before, fervently scavenging for her G-spot in the exact direction he needed to.

She jerked her hips up involuntarily and moaned—she was hardly ever this vocal--and she felt herself spasm around his fingers. He gave her a moment before he slapped something in her hand.

Bending down, he spoke firmly in her ear, “Put it on me, bitch.”

She lifted it to her face and realized it was a condom. It was almost a little disappointing that she hadn’t had to fight him over it, begging him to wear one while he insisted she was a dirty, cock-hungry, slut. Tearing the packaging open—Trojan brand, ironically ribbed for her pleasure—she rolled it down his shaft, Jesse eying her all the while like this was somehow supposed to be titillating for her.

He splayed her legs further apart and actually fucking glanced up at her, shattering a multitude of illusions she was so desperately trying to hold on to.

She mumbled under her breath, “ _Seriously_?”   

But then he shoved himself inside, completely, in a single thrust, not at all hesitating before commencing with brutal, rapid pumps. Pulling out entirely, he rammed back in, and she started to match him with her hips pivoting off the bed. The last time she’d had sex had been much longer ago than she’d ever confess. And honestly just having flesh-to-flesh contact, a mouth sucking at her throat, having him pulsing and thick inside of her was so utterly vanilla but undeniably blissful.

She allowed it to go on long enough to kiss him again-- _god_ was he disgustingly good at that—and to scrape her teeth against whatever it was etched into his chest and to feel things go a bit stale. Because while her pelvis was likely to bloom out in bruises, this still wasn’t doing as much as she wanted.

Lydia struggled to get her breathing in check. “Missionary? Really, Jesse? Are you really that moronic? Some pathetic, coked-up lump of shit? An _absolute_ imbecile?”

She was obviously familiar with the old adage about never poking a tiger, but she’d never experienced something quite like this. The abrupt change in his countenance was both terrifying and thrilling, his face hardening with rage like it was fuming from his pores. He gritted his teeth and flipped her onto her knees.

“ _Son of a bitch_ ,” he said, sounding equally incensed and choked up.

Dizzy, she tried to hold onto something just as he wrenched her arms up aggressively enough for her elbows to pop, her left shoulder aching as he forced her hands to one of the bedposts. He was growling almost as he strapped them together with her panties. His grip was back around her throat as he entered her again, thrusting even faster now.   

“ _Asshole,_ ” Jesse gasped. “You _fucking asshole._ _Fuck_ you. Fuck you. _Fuck you_.”

What he’d done to her trachea before was child’s play compared to the animalistic grasp he had her in now. She was tempted to safe-word—his hand was too high up this time, and with practical, functional scarves out of the question in Texas-weather, she’d have to conceal this with some flimsy piece of silk like she was a cheap, 1960s stewardess—but dopamine was overriding any desire to speak up. Even if she’d wanted to, it would have been literally impossible. The harder he fucked her, the more his grip tightened, the smaller her airway became.

And then it was if she was being submerged. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision went entirely blank and in a kind of out-of-body recognition, she vaguely detected the faint sound of him screaming. Was he shouting about someone killing someone else?

Lydia didn’t know or care.

She was floating, full of him, finding this kind of hypnotic serenity.

 _Oh fuck_ , and then she came.

It splintered her into pieces, prickled down across every inch of her skin like her entire body was a limb that had fallen asleep.

“ _Ah_.”

Her lungs betrayed her the second they were permitted to gulp back what they wanted. And Jesse shoved her forward with his hips. He didn’t stop until her breasts were getting chaffed against the headboard. He found her clitoris again, pinching it.

His breath was on the ridge of her right ear, ragged and watery. He palmed her crotch and rubbed her in an ungainly sort of rhythm with his thrusts. Still high on endorphins, Lydia’s third orgasm peaked with relative ease, and she responded silently with just a slight quiver as she felt him still and sigh against her skin.

He sniffled as he pulled out, and he was crouched down on the carpet by the time she turned around. She smelled his cigarette before she saw it, and in spite of knowing full well that places of this caliber had strict no-smoking policies, watching him had sort of a filthy appeal. It had a kind of finality to it too, like a peach-balsamic reduction on a bed of greens; a finishing touch to an event she’d been orchestrating for some time now. 

Retrieving his boxers, she realized her chemise had remained on though with only one working strap. She mindlessly ran her fingers though her hair and grimaced at how sweaty the back of her neck felt.

“Hey,” he said, blowing smoke out of the corner of his lips. His jeans were on, face blank but red. Had he cried at some point? “Do you want me to like, stay or”—

She arranged her chemise as well as she could. “Oh no, that won’t be necessary.”

Somehow managing to tug his shirt on with a cigarette in his mouth, he reached for his jacket without putting it on.

“Yo, you sure it’s cool if I leave?”

His voice was so pathetically timid, and the urge to laugh was difficult to resist.

She smiled instead. “It’s not like I have you under lock and key, Jesse. You can go whenever you like.”

He stubbed his cigarette out against a decorative, hollowed clay fixture on the nightstand and shoved his arms back into his jacket. She idly contemplated how long it would take the concierge to send up fresh linens as she walked by him, glancing back with a pointed look that he seemed to pick up on. He followed her, and she let him out where he stood giving her an uneasy sort of nod.

"Goodnight," she said.

“Goodnight. I”—

Lydia let the door shut.

She waited until she could hear the elevator ding before she headed to the bathroom for a shower. The nails of her index and middle fingers were ripped and jagged, so she added filing them to her list: call the front desk for sheets, open a window to air out the bedroom, decide between the pointed-toed black pumps and the chocolate brown sling-backs for tomorrow, apply Neosporin to the mark on breast, remove her makeup. She sincerely hoped her regular breakfast spot had more of their organic, made-in-house blueberry compote for the crepes she’d intended to indulge in tomorrow morning. As the water warmed, she lifted her chemise over her head. She propped the lid of the trashcan open with her heel, discarding the torn article, holding her breath as she stepped inside.   

 


End file.
